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The Punjabi Punk
To give you a chance to stock up for the new lockdown, we are extending our January sale. All titles in the online shop are half price with the discount code JANUARY until midnight on Sunday. Click...
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My Love For The Cries Of London
To give you a chance to stock up for the new lockdown, we are extending our January sale. All titles in the online shop are half price with the discount code JANUARY until midnight on Sunday. Click...
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More Ghastly Facades
To give you a chance to stock up for the new lockdown, we are extending our January sale. All titles in the online shop are half price with the discount code JANUARY until midnight on Sunday. Click...
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My Scrap Collection
For some years, I have been collecting Victorian scraps of tradesmen and street characters, and putting them in a drawer. These damp January days gave me the ideal opportunity to search through the...
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Adam Dant’s Club Row
In 2018, Adam Dant – the last artist on Redchurch St – was evicted from his studio on Club Row which has sat empty since then. In this series of watercolours, Adam contemplates the transformation of...
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A Judicial Review At The High Court For The Bethnal Green Mulberry
. I am overjoyed to announce that our campaign – under the patronage of Dame Judi Dench – has succeeded in obtaining a Judicial Review at the High Court for Tower Hamlets Council’s decision to permit...
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Lawrence Gowing’s Departure From Mare St
Mare St, 1937 “I set to work at once on the flat roof of a furniture shop facing the corner of Dalston Lane (to the right of the picture) where my father and his father before him had his drapery...
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Wilful Destruction At The Truman Brewery
“What has happened is unquestionably vandalism” – Dan Cruickshank Last year, Dan Cruickshank made a survey of the historic fabric of the Old Truman Brewery to ensure that these elements would be...
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The Juvenile Almanac
Now that we can look forward to life beyond lockdown, I thought this might be a good moment to present this almanac from the eighteen-twenties, published by Hodgson & Co, 10 Newgate St. I am...
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Snowfall At Bow Cemetery
We are having a VALENTINE’S SALE with all titles in the Spitalfields Life Bookshop at half price this weekend. Some books are already sold out and others are running out, so – with weeks of lockdown...
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At The Custom House
All titles in the Spitalfields Life Bookshop are half price in our Valentine’s sale. Some are already sold out and others are running low, so – with weeks of lockdown yet to come – this is the ideal...
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John Allin, Painter
All titles in the Spitalfields Life Bookshop are half price in our Valentine’s sale. Some are already sold out and others are running low, so – with weeks of lockdown yet to come – this is the ideal...
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John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana
All titles in the Spitalfields Life Bookshop are half price in our Valentine’s sale. Some are already sold out and others are running low, so – with weeks of lockdown yet to come – this is the ideal...
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In Search Of Horace Warner
All titles in the Spitalfields Life Bookshop are half price in our Valentine’s sale. Some are already sold out and others are running low, so – with weeks of lockdown yet to come – this is the ideal...
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Adam Dant’s London Squares
As an antidote to the current loneliness of the empty streets, Adam Dant sent me these drawings of celebrated London squares teeming with life. Click to enlarge and explore Soho Square If any part of...
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The London Alphabet
Although this Alphabet of London in the archive at the Bishopsgate Institute dates from more than one hundred and fifty years ago, it is remarkable how many of the landmarks illustrated are still with...
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Laurie Elks’ Bottle Label Collection
Laurie Elks is celebrated in Hackney as the custodian of St Augustine’s Tower, but before he arose to these lofty heights he practised the art of stewardship by amassing this magnificent collection of...
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On Vaccination Day
Statue of John Keats at Guy’s Hospital It is now almost a year since I had the coronavirus and last week a letter arrived inviting me for a vaccination. Immediately, I booked the next available...
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Three Brick Lane Events
The Spitalfields Trust presents three free webinars as part of their campaign to save Brick Lane from the ugly shopping mall with floors of corporate offices on top proposed at the Old Truman Brewery....
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On Mothering Sunday
Valerie, my mother What are you to do on Mothering Sunday if you have no mother? My mother died in 2005 and each year I confront this troubling question when the annual celebration comes around. If I...
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